More than a dozen conservative Washington State lawmakers want to seize huge areas of land from the federal government - most of it in national forests - give it to the state, and possibly finance public education from its sale or timber production.
A couple of Spokane Valley lawmakers are among Republican sponsors of the bill - Bob McCaslin and Matt Shea. Their bill would set up a state legislative task force to analyze all public lands in Washington and to tell lawmakers how they could take over land owned by the federal government.
They point to poor management by federal overseers which has allowed a proliferation of beetle kills, invasive species, access restrictions and unchecked wildfires.
The sponsors argue the federal government never complied with a section of the enabling act which created the state, calling for five percent of any federal land sold to be given to the state for public education funding.
Federal property exempt from the takeover includes national historic and recreation areas, wilderness areas, tribal and military land. Federal property such as post office buildings would also be exempt. But the bill would affect millions of acres of federal forest land. Whether the measure gets a hearing, much less a vote, in the House is unclear.
